“Boys, thank you for coming here tonight. We are here to celebrate the birth of Jamie Carter, without whom my ability to get shutouts would once again be useless. Please join me in thanking him for gracing our town and our team with his presence.”
He holds up a shot glass, saying “To Jamie!” before downing it in one.
Around me, others join in with their own shots and congratulations. Against my better judgment, I down one myself, feeling the fire burn down my throat.
“Who wants to go dance?” Alexei yells over the booming bass coming from downstairs.
Together, a small group of us head to the dance floor. The group had decided this would be a boys-only night, so the married guys mostly hang back, avoiding the various women eyeing them up. The one exception seems to be Johnny Mackenzie, Tremblay’s defensive partner. While he’s not married, his girlfriend has been with him since the AHL and is one of the more prominent WAGs in Minneapolis.
When he gets to the dancefloor, though, his eyes don’t seem to be on the women at all. Instead, he closes his eyes and moves along to the music with surprising grace for a man of his size. Alexei, too, seems to be no stranger to the dance floor, although hedoesseem drawn to the women around us — several of them, in fact. As I start to move with the music, I glance back up to where the rest of the team sits. There, elbows perched on the railing, stands Tremblay, staring down at us.
No, at me. He’s staring at me.
And for once this week, the look on his face isn’t one of disgust or concern. It’s one of…interest?
Before I can work out his motivation, he leaves the railing to grab another shot.
I continue dancing, with a few other guys joining us. Finn looks exactly as you’d expect of a kid at his first grownup bar — eager, enthusiastic, and entirely out of his depth. Eventually, the dancefloor fills up and the heat becomes overwhelming. Making my excuses, I head back to the VIP room, which is empty aside from Sutter and Matthews over in the corner, debating the relative merits of the various Fast and the Furious movies.
As I head to the bathroom, I feel a breeze blowing and follow it down the hallway. After a quick right, I see what appears to be an emergency exit, propped open by a chair. Outside, I see the shadow of Ethan Tremblay silhouetted against the night sky.
“You okay, Captain?”
He jumps a bit and turns as I emerge onto the fire escape. I can smell the faint aroma of whiskey on him as I stand nearby.
“Um. Yeah. Definitely.”
Well, that’s certainly convincing.
“How’d you get this open without setting off the alarm?”
He looks back at the door, almost as though he had forgotten about it.
“Oh. The waitress. Told her I needed a smoke, she helped me out.”
“Yousmoke?” Given how concerned the man is with optics, I’m surprised to hear it.
“Fuck, no. Can you imagine still skating at my age with lungs like that? I just needed some…quiet.”
I stand next to him at the railing and look at the city.
“Was this…ok? For your birthday?”
A look at him, a question in my eyes.
“Um, yeah? I didn’t really expect anything.”
“That’s fair, we haven’t…I haven’t exactly welcomed you. To the team.”
His speech is stilted, and I wonder how many shots he ended up having.
“I…appreciate you recognizing that. And it’s been…better. Hasn’t it?”
He still looks off at the city skyline, and dark quietly surrounds us for a few moments
“I’m not homophobic, you know.”
I can’t help the laugh that slips out.
